Kukla's Korner Hockey

“I didn’t swear at him. I didn’t say anything rude or disrespectful,” Doan said of his postgame dust-up with Kings’ captain Dustin Brown. “I just wasn’t as cordial as I should’ve been.”

Alas, there were two endings to the Western Conference finals. The last was a disgrace. The first was a revelation.

First, the ugly: When the Coyotes’ captain and teammate Martin Hanzal turned the ceremonial handshake line into confrontational exchanges with Brown, they breached the NHL’s code of honor.

The handshake line is one of the sacred, quirky traditions that make the NHL special. It demands instant sportsmanship regardless of what just transpired. Circumstances don’t matter. That’s the whole point.

Doan said it wasn’t as bad as it looks. He claims Brown wanted to tell his side of the story, which only infuriated Doan even more.

Comments

The Coyotes avoided a sweep, restored their dignity and made a bold statement on their way out of the playoffs.

What a rediculous sentence.
It’s cute when teams reach the 3rd round for the first time. It’s also sad when teams act like it’s the first time they made it to the 3rd round.

Posted by
Vladimir16
from Grand River Valley on 05/25/12 at 10:34 AM ET

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Mike Smith is the only one on that team that deserves any praise. They won game 4 on his back alone, and when he wasn’t able to bail them out in game 5, they lost. Simple as that. No growth occured. It was the same ole’ team with a new goalie that had a career year. And when he had an off game, they lost. Hell, sometimes when he played out of his mind, they lost.

And it will be interesting to see how much money they throw his way, and how he deals with the pressure of having to reproduce those results game after game, year after year. Does he blossom like Kipper, or choke like Mason?

Posted by
Hootinani
from the parade following Babs out of town on 05/25/12 at 04:05 PM ET